Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [93]
She tried not to make a big deal out of it, despite her strong feelings, and purposely hadn’t followed his career. In fact, when her friend Marie, a huge Elvis fan who attended a number of his shows, suggested that June join her and a group of girlfriends on a trip to Memphis, June said she’d rather go to Florida. But Marie had the car, so Memphis it was.
When they arrived in town, they drove to Beale Street and stopped at Lansky Brothers, the store where Elvis bought his loud clothing. Marie wheedled his address out of Bernard Lansky, one of the owners, who added that he wasn’t supposed to tell people where Elvis lived. But he guessed it wouldn’t do any harm to just ride by, because Elvis was out of town.
Marie was upset—they’d come all this way and now Elvis wasn’t home? But June was secretly relieved. She didn’t know if he’d remember her. Now at the house, she could see the construction from the Presleys’ new swimming pool in the backyard. They were all wondering what shape it was going to be in—someone said she bet it was in the form of a guitar—when June said, “Well, let’s go take a look.”
“I got out of the car, and they all followed me, trespassing. I was standing on the fence looking over, when a big black Cadillac drove up in the driveway. Out stepped Elvis and his mother and father, all dressed in dark clothing. I don’t know if he put two and two together, like, ‘Marie is from Biloxi, so that’s June standing at the fence,’ but I turned and had my back to him, and he came up behind me and took me by the waist, and picked me up off the ground and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ ”
She explained that she was there with the girls, and he said he’d been looking all over for her, that he’d called and left those messages for her to call back, and why hadn’t she done it? They laughed about her nitwit brother, and then he said, “Somebody told me you were engaged to be married,” and looked over at Marie.
Well, never mind, Elvis said. He told her she had to stay the week, and his parents would be happy to have her. (“I think I probably was the first female guest on Audubon Drive.”) He would show her Memphis, and if his 1956 ivory Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible were ready at the factory, they’d fly down to Houston and pick it up. He had all kinds of plans: They’d go motorcycle riding, they’d go to the movies, they’d see anything she wanted to see. He was so glad she was there, and he had so much to tell her.
There were also so many unspoken thoughts in his head. Now that he was getting a little notoriety, he thought more about his lost twin. He wondered what Jessie would think about all this crazy stuff! But now he had June, at least for a week, and he was going to make the most of it. They wore matching motorcycle caps with bright white bills, and when they walked down the street, people stopped them and asked, “Are the two of you twins?” They just looked so much alike.
Gladys, too, enjoyed June’s company. They’d meet in the kitchen in the mornings while Elvis was still asleep and fix food together, sitting and drinking coffee as the sun came up.
“She saw me as domesticated and wise for my young years. Since my mother was divorced and working, I was the lady of the house. When I would get home from school, I would do the cooking, and I used to design and make all my clothes. The first time Mrs. Presley met me she admired my skirt. I said, ‘Well, thanks, I made that.’ So she started taking it off of me, looking at the zipper. She said, ‘You sew really well. You could do this for a living.’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I never did think about it like that.’ ”
June could see that Gladys needed a confidante, that she had things on her mind. She was worried about this Colonel Parker, this cigar-smoking shyster. He made her nervous. But everything made her nervous of late, she said, even though June thought she seemed awfully calm and wondered about the pills she saw Gladys take from the windowsill in the kitchen.
“I have a fear of waking